Our Services

 

The first steps in developing any advocacy or investigative strategy are to understand the context—who are the main players, from policymakers to financiers, what is their modus operandi and what motivates them. With this valuable information, the principal and founder of Sēk Strategies, Eryn Schornick has years of experience taking research from paper to reality through a clear plan to achieve desired results. This includes developing and implementing investigative and advocacy strategies for a single campaign or over the long run. Sēk Strategies excels in translating raw research which is often overwhelming and difficult to piece together into something that drives change.

Investigation & Research

 

Groundbreaking findings and strategies often come from an inkling, tip, or solid, yet incomplete evidence. Sēk Strategies can scope these initial data points to help your team determine whether there is an investigative story or theory of change worthy of pursuit. We are committed to conducting thorough and in-depth research to help your team reach even the most elusive answers.

To uncover solid and useful data Sēk Strategies relies on years of experience in desk and field-based research.  We are experts in a range of databases and research techniques, and in navigating complex settings, from searching records in a Dominican government office to gathering evidence and sourcing interviews across rural Myanmar. 

Sēk Strategies brings unique financial research skills and expertise enabling us to dissect and analyze even the most complicated network or financial schemes.  Coupling this know-how with our legal background in international human rights law and humanitarian law will provide your team with sharp  insights into human rights and environmental abuses. 

Strategic Advice

 

Making sense of a range of data can be daunting. Sēk Strategies can help your team analyze complex systems and pinpoint strategic findings, targets, and tactics to tackle human rights and environmental harms.

This includes the publication of explosive investigative findings as an exceptional strategic tactic to draw attention to a problem of public concern requiring an urgent solution.  Sēk Strategies can help your team tell a compelling story with factual and legal integrity. 

Once that story drops, then what?  Sēk Strategies specializes in finding the answer.  We can help your team capitalize on this strategic opportunity by getting the right people to see and care about the story, organizing them, and spurring them to act. 

Corporate Engagement

Once armed with compelling information, stakeholders, including civil society, are increasingly looking to the private sector to meaningfully engage on sustainability issues. They are making calls for real change in corporate and financing behavior and for public disclosures on steps taken to address human rights and environmental impacts in line with regulations and international standards.

Sēk Strategies is dedicated to bridging the engagement gap between the private sector and civil society, including among affected and local communities and Indigenous Peoples, when appropriate. Our priority is to provide civil society with the know-how and platform to bring expectations and concerns directly to the private sector to advance corporate sustainability and address wrongdoing.

And when engagement is not resulting in desired outcomes, Sēk Strategies is prepared to support your team’s ramped up advocacy strategy.

Training

 

Sēk Strategies offers bespoke training sessions to give you and your team the tools to follow the money, dissect corporate structures, map networks, trace supply chains, and analyze findings. We can help your team reach investigative conclusions and winning advocacy strategies. 

What people are saying

  • “Eryn is a skilled and dedicated investigator and researcher, and an incredibly powerful advocate. As a policy adviser for our banks and anti-corruption team she played a leading role in many of our campaigns, not least tackling the role of anonymously owned companies in global corruption and money laundering. Her knowledge of the world of investment was also invaluable. Moreover, she is a compelling public speaker and good fun to work with! What more could you ask for?”

    — Patrick Alley, Co-Founder at Global Witness

  • “Eryn is awesome to work with. She guided Open Ownership to develop our advocacy strategy targeting complex and long-term change in a fast changing environment. I really appreciated her wise counsel, razor sharp focus and challenging yet constructive questioning! Her work has created a robust foundation for our global advocacy work challenging corporate opacity, and over a year on, our team is using the strategy weekly to make smart decisions.”

    -Louise Russell-Prywata, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Open Ownership

  • “We were incredibly pleased to have Eryn’s help in an investigation into political and business corruption. Her experience publishing investigative stories and processes for structuring an investigation were useful and effective for our work.”

    — Jaled Abdelrahim, Content Editor for AJ+ español and Ivan Almanillo, Investigative Journalist for AJ+ español

  • “Eryn stepped into her role as interim director at a pivotal time for the FTC. During a global pandemic, the FTC was in the midst of a leadership and strategic transition with an urgent need to secure future funding. Under Eryn’s leadership the Coalition successfully hired a permanent director, developed and finalized a new multi-year strategic plan, and raised US$2million in under 10 months.”

    - Holden Healy, Head of Operations at the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC)

  • “Eryn is a thorough and diligent researcher. She can identify the most important themes and details through her diligent and exhaustive work. She is also incredibly communicative and flexible in her approach, making working with her a delight.”

    - Client

  • “Eryn is terrific. She did excellent work preparing for and delivering an hour-long presentation about financial analysis to journalists from around the world. She was attentive to her audience's knowledge level, embedding the general ideas and techniques she was advancing in specific applications and news articles. She made sure repeatedly to check in and make sure that people were understanding what she was delivering.”

    — Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, Founder/Executive Director at Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and Padnos/Sarosik Endowed Professor of Civil Discourse, Grand Valley State University

  • "Eryn is a world-class investigator, investor advocacy expert, and brilliant strategist. I trust her to advance responsible and rights-respecting practices through smart, actionable guidance."

    - Peter Micek, General Counsel, Access Now and Adjunct Professor, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

  • “Eryn generously volunteered her time to help a journalist in our community from Asia gain access to financial documents he would not have been able to see and to help him think through those same materials.”

    — Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, Founder/Executive Director at Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and Padnos/Sarosik Endowed Professor of Civil Discourse, Grand Valley State University

  • “Eryn is helping the FTC implement a fantastic strategic plan under an updated theory of change. With Eryn's involvement we are reaching new contacts and donors based on a specific understanding of our goals. With Eryn's guidance the FTC is focusing on new areas that in time will allow it to better connect financial transparency and tax justice to human rights and environmental considerations. Eryn is a fantastic strategic thinker.”

    - Matti Kohonen, Executive Director at the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC)

  • “I am incredibly grateful to have connected with someone with such a versatile background, a clear passion for what she does, a professional manner and generous spirit. She is an important member of our community at the Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism, and I look forward to a continued connection.”

    — Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, Founder/Executive Director at Center for Collaborative Investigative Journalism and Padnos/Sarosik Endowed Professor of Civil Discourse, Grand Valley State University

  • “Eryn is a phenomenal investigator, a brilliant advocate and a great strategist. I was lucky enough to work alongside and was always impressed by her eye for detail, ability to find and manage huge volumes of research to find what truly matters, and turn all of that into compelling investigations and campaigns.”

    - Murray Worthy, Gas Campaign Leader at Global Witness

  • “Eryn is a thorough professional whose insight into investor advocacy was deeply valuable to our work at Access Now. She has the ability to distill complex ideas and communicate them in a way that’s easy to understand for a range of audiences. It was a pleasure working with her!”

    - Isedua Oribhabor, Business & Human Rights Lead, Access Now

Let’s Work Together

info@sekstrategies.com
Washington, DC 20001

 

We’re always looking for new opportunities and are accustomed to working internationally and remotely. Please get in touch to discuss how we can best fit your needs.